Four number ones in a row for The Hunger Games means the movie has now grossed more than $531m worldwide, factoring in the $194m running total outside North America. It's hard to see this stay on top for a fifth consecutive week given that Warner Bros will open the Zac Efron romance The Lucky Ones next weekend, but you never know.

Overall box office fell around 10% against the same session last year but it's wise to remember that weekend-on-weekend comparisons are often fruitless. This time last year Fox opened the animation Rio and Dimension Films debuted Scream 4, two very different propositions at the onset of their cycles.

What does seem relevant is that the first quarter as a whole was up on the same season in 2011. It's no mean feat to sustain growth over three months and this is good news for the theatre owners as we hurtle towards the summer, with The Avengers all set to kick off on May 4. The consensus seems to be that this summer could set a record, and next week's CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas will be a chance for exhibitors and distributors to rub shoulders and talk it up.

Fox's The Three Stooges opened in second place and it will be a surprise if this sticks around. Few people seem to care about the exploits of these knuckleheads from a bygone era and it seems too niche to justify a wide release. Lionsgate's The Cabin in the Woods wants to appeal to as wide an audience as possible: it certainly deserves to reach more than the diehard and date night crowd because it is great fun. But the somewhat muted result in third place suggests it's uphill from here unless word of mouth begins to catch on fast. Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer who directed The Avengers, co-wrote and produced the clever twist on the horror genre. It picked up fans the moment it premiered at Ain't it Cool News founder Harry Knowles' Butt-Numb-A-Thon festival last December before receiving the official premiere at SXSW in Austin, Texas, last month.

Meanwhile, Titanic 3D is as transparent a money-making ploy as they come but we shouldn't chide Fox for it; the movie has now reached around $190m globally in its new 3D incarnation. More importantly, for the studio, it combines with the 15-year-old original's lifetime gross for more than $2bn worldwide. James Cameron's intimate drama joins an elite club of two to have reached the milestone – the other being Cameron's Avatar, also distributed by Fox.